Review of Devilman: Crybaby

First anime review so I thought I’d point out some things about myself. 1. I don’t watch a lot of anime or even read manga. 2. I’ve decided to start watching anime cause I thought it would give me something new to do and experience. I’m new to this. 3. My review will be somewhat strict. I’m judging this the way I’d review any other show or film. The shows will be held up to the standard I have any other of other forms of media like movies. 4. I don’t know a lot about anime so things like sound, voice acting, or any otherthing anime does probably won’t be taken into account. I’m just judging this straight-up. (Pacing, character, story, the art itself, and of course if I liked it)
5. I probably didn’t pick up some things upon my initial watch. Again, I’m new to this and sometimes I just don’t pick up on things that I should’ve noticed. Feel free to point me out.

Devilman Crybaby waste it’s interesting premise and instead focuses on over the top violence and nudity to mask it’s rushed and disappointing story.

The story/premise itself is fine. It was good enough to have me intrigued. But as it moves on and introduces new characters and ideas it gets very muddled. The anime itself feels like it’s juggling to many things at once and they all end up crashing and shattering on the floor. Characters aren’t given enough characterization to even care. Side characters stay in the background and if they die the anime expects you to care. Characters like Miki or even either of the two leads are left to the viewer to understand what’s happening. In the first episode they slap you with all the information the show thinks you need and leaves it at that. Why is Ryou so rich? Who is this family that Akira has been thrust in with? What parents would leave their child with another family for over a decade? The anime does end up explaining things throughout the show but the pacing was so messed up that I just didn’t care when it came to it.

The animation is actually something I liked quite a bit. While it’s not as nice as other anime’s the simplicity of it was something I liked. The animation is about on par with 90’s anime. I think more or less that I respected it’s ambition more than anything.

I guess I’ll just wrap it up here. Basically. Devilman Crybaby has ambition, flair and sports an interesting premise, but it focuses far too much on its action and other similar things instead of making a cohesive and entertaining story. And it all comes crashing down in a rushed and disappointing finale that decides to wrap everything it can up in the span of a 25 minute episodes.